Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins 2012

Visitors to Nunhead Cemetery will have the opportunity to ponder past, present and future manifestations of the seven deadly sins in a public art exhibition sited in the Stearns Mausoleum. All the seven deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony stem from our basic human needs – to feed, to rest, to defend, to re-produce, and to support ourselves, but to ‘excess’. Seven artists examine one of the seven deadly sins each.

Jolanta Jagiello takes the sin gluttony and explores it as an excess of food in the past, an excess consumption in the present, and an excess of technology gadgets in the future. Whilst the sin sloth seems to stem from the exact opposite; the disinclination to any form of labour or exertion. In the opinion of artist Ara Moradian, sloth has neither past nor future; it is a self-perpetuating void, which he takes the opportunity to explore in this exhibition.

Sara Scott sources the Brothers Grimm fairytales to illustrate the sin of envy, as dressing up in silks and satins, presenting a false face to the world and concealing a heart of bitterness and spite. As women live longer, Debora Mo explores the sin of lust as sexual desire in a woman’s youth, adulthood, through to more advanced maturity. The sin greed is presented through the words of wisdom of Astrea Goddess of Justice in the past, to the words of wisdom of Bhishma in the present, to future insights through a glass darkly by the artist Jill Rock.

Among the seven deadly sins wrath is the most destructive, Desiree Ickerodt concentrates on ways of dealing with the impact of this anger. Her artworks focus on the fragmentation of the body into multiple personalities as a coping mechanism in the face of anger. Elisabeta Chojak-Mysko completes the exhibition on the seven deadly sins with a series of installations addressing pride.